‘OpenVR Advanced Settings’ is a dashboard overlay that allows access to advanced functionality of any headset running SteamVR. The menu is accessible in VR, meaning you can easily adjust options such as supersampling without removing your headset.

Last year we explained how, if you’re computer has processing power to spare, supersampling could dramatically improve image quality in the HTC Vive headset, but the method involved a rather clunking adjustment of a SteamVR JSON config file with a text editor.

Since then, tools such as bilago’s ‘Chaperone Switcher’ began to include supersampling options, and, in September, user matzman666 released ‘OpenVR Advanced Settings‘, which eventually allowed both chaperone and supersampling adjustments from within VR across any headset running SteamVR (the Rift included). Now it’s easy to quickly adjust the amount of supersampling to get your VR headset looking as sharp as possible while maintaining the critical 90 FPS.

openvr advanced settings htc vive supersampling oculus rift (1)Now at version 2.2.2, the overlay is packed with useful features, such as creating and loading multiple chaperone profiles, an asynchronous reprojection toggle, a ‘Revive‘ settings menu, and, most recently, a slider to adjust the size of the desktop VR view.

The installation couldn’t be simpler: download the most recent installer here and follow the installation instructions. Once wearing the headset in SteamVR, you should find a new ‘advanced settings’ button near the bottom of the dashboard. There you can set separate supersampling settings for application and compositor, keeping in mind anything above the default 1.0 setting is considerably more demanding on your graphics hardware.

If you’re using an Oculus Rift to play games through Oculus Home, you can use these instructions to sharpen the Rift’s visuals via supersampling.

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Dominic Brennan
The trial version of Microsoft’s Monster Truck Madness probably had something to do with it. And certainly the original Super Mario Kart and Gran Turismo. A car nut from an early age, Dominic was always drawn to racing games above all other genres. Now a seasoned driving simulation enthusiast, and former editor of Sim Racer magazine, Dominic has followed virtual reality developments with keen interest, as cockpit-based simulation is a perfect match for the technology. Conditions could hardly be more ideal, a scientist once said. Writing about simulators lead him to Road to VR, whose broad coverage of the industry revealed the bigger picture and limitless potential of the medium. Passionate about technology and a lifelong PC gamer, Dominic suffers from the ‘tweak for days’ PC gaming condition, where he plays the same section over and over at every possible combination of visual settings to find the right balance between fidelity and performance. Based within The Fens of Lincolnshire (it’s very flat), Dominic can sometimes be found marvelling at the real world’s ‘draw distance’, wishing virtual technologies would catch up.
  • NooYawker

    Love it. Messing with the super sampling on a per game access is a pain.

  • VR Geek

    Going to try right now. I have a OC 1070 so curious what it will be able to muster.

    • Badelhas

      Please let me know how it is and which games / experiences you tried. I have that gpu as well.
      Cheers

    • CoffeeBuzz

      please share results.

    • NooYawker

      I upped to 2.0 on a 1080 most games ran great. Some games I need to lower on 1.5 to 1.7. But man it looks so much better.

      • JMB

        You will almost always reproject at those settings with a 1080.

        • NooYawker

          I was reading your other post with Greg and I don’t even know what reprojecting means. But I’ll try turning it off and see any difference.

          Whoa, I turned both reprojections options off and everything shakes when I look around. I think I’ll turn SS down and turn off reprojection and find a better setting.

          Looks like I’ll be leaving Asynchronous reprojection on and leave off interleaved. It looks great and no shaking or weird loss of tracking.

    • VR Geek

      I tried it and perhaps it did not work as I nor others could see any difference. I tried both the application and compositor settings and played Vanishing realms. I am going to try again based on these comments.

      • NooYawker

        Don’t up the compositor, that’s just the menu section, it looks like it eats up resources even during gameplay since it’s always on. I even lowered it a bit, menus don’t look as crisp but I’d rather have more juice for applications.

  • FrankVVV

    My pron videoplayer already does this :)

  • hyperskyper

    I only have a 980 so SS isn’t something that I can really use. ☹

  • mcnbns

    And if you’ve spent all your money on your Vive and are still using an ancient HD 7950, like me, you can downsample to 0.9 to dramatically improve framerates at the expense of some visual fidelity…

  • JMB

    Love that tool, really nice and easy to use.

    I still haven’t figured out the differnce between setting SS in SteamVR vs ingame. Also, is there a definite answer if increasing the Compiler SS (to get amazing fidelity and legibility within Steam VR menus) will affect ingame performance? i.e. is the compiler still rendering in the background?

    I have a Titan XP, so playing with SS is very rewarding.

    • I’ll try to help you out since I had almost all the same questions. There isn’t really a difference in game vs out, but it’s important to understand the ingame settings came along after the SS tweaking gained traction. So what CAN happen, is effectively double super sampling which brings things to a crawl. It’s better to use ingame if its offered as other optimizations may be linked under the hood.

      While I haven’t played with it recently, upping the compositor SS can have a heavy price on ingame performance because it is still ‘there.’ Two big things for you are 1) if you can’t now, learn how to tell if reprojection is occurring and 2) turn on frame timing info in the headset (dev settings). You can flip the wand over and see what is pegging your system.

      I don’t want to sound patronizing, but I didn’t know until I looked it so check difference between asynchronous and interleaved reprojection. Many people would crank the SS to the degree reprojection was constantly on. This isn’t good, but don’t want to get down that rabbit hole here :)

      • JMB

        Cheers for the reply!

        So best practice will be having both SS settings within the tool to 1.0 and use ingame SS when offered.

        Shame about the compiler SS, don’t know if I want to go back to anything less than 1.8 within SteamVR menus, just looks gorgeous.

        And thanks for the headsup regarding reprojection! I always have both off as I simply cannot stand the ‘feeling’ of reprojection.

        Will play with dev heuristics settings, should give a good feel for the max settings of each game.

        In other news it would be great if reviewers could include recommended settings for different GPUs in their reviews

      • NooYawker

        Go down that rabbit hole, I’d really like to understand these options better. I found that asynchronous reprojection on a high SS works great for me. Why is reprojection so bad if it gives the illusion of high frame rates? This setup actually helped a lot with motion sickness, I ran around DoomBFG VR and didn’t feel sick. I usually can play for only 10-15 minutes.

  • Sam Illingworth

    “…if you’re computer has …”

    I think you mean “…if you’re a computer that has …”.

    • Bryan Ischo

      That’s funny :)

  • OgreTactics

    Amazing little tool. Pretty soon it’ll work on mobile (4K ones) and be optimised and automated.

    Btw, Retroprojection: re-projecting the previous frame to cover for missing pieces or not fully rendered frame. Asynchronous Retroprojection, or rather asynchronous warp, does an even smarter job by re-projecting a previous frame but warping it depending on where you are looking at, like looking above will simply twist the previous frame by tilting it accordingly, until the next frame is rendered.

    • You are pretty upsessed w/ Mobile VR :)

      Using any tools like Riftcat to play PC/Console games on Gear VR?

      • OgreTactics

        Well put simply, getting my first GearVR was a big of an amazement as the original DK1 was. And then the more I thought about it the more I realised that mobile is the only way to go for VR.

        I’ve tried Riftcat, Trinus and Vridge, and while I always find impressive little start-up/developers nobodies doing the job of multi-millions dollars corporations, the underlaying hardware is not there…damn in fact it wasn’t there until this year which is the year where WifiAD SOC chip are publicly commercially available.

        So while the software works (I don’t know what codec and compression they use) we will need outside plugin or hopefully integrated mods with dual-channel WifiAD chips for it to work flawlessly without much compression.

        • WifiAD SOC

          What would this do for VR?

          • OgreTactics

            That would do what TPCast does, but implemented in-headset AND more importantly if implemented well, this would mean being able to sync a VR Headset with ANY device, not just a proprietary one, so in other terms your wireless GearVR could stream flawlessly from a PC. At this point this would mean there’s not much point in PC VR headset anymore.

          • Of course mobile would need a VR and a a phone with better visuals and features than PC VR. Better lenses, screens, etc.

            Visuals is KEY or else it cannot defeat the point of a PC VR headset designed for immersion and presence especially if widescreen/bigger FOV does not happen. No goggles.

            Of course roomscale support maybe needed as well but now valve is talking housescale, but that won’t be needed, but devs can create games that morph a game depending on house or some rooms. It happened with roomscale already.

            On the upside Samsung has its 4d headphones designed to enhance presence and made you feel movement, flight, etc. I assume PC VR is already working on something similar.

  • NooYawker

    Ive noticed I’m experiencing much less motion sickness if any at higher SS

  • Benjamin Orlowski

    Will this auto adjust the SS for 90 FPS or do I have to do some science for each of my games. I’ve played with SS in PCARS and Arizona Sunshine and I found it was annoying to have spend hours trying different scenarios to get it to play well on my 1070.

  • geogan

    “Once wearing the headset in SteamVR, you should find a new ‘advanced settings’ button near the bottom of the dashboard.”

    Sorry, but where is this??? When I start SteamVR I am in the default Home with a three paneled blackboard in front of me and a giant screen to right… where is these settings located???